Expertise from Calvin, CEG’s Director of Coaching
If your essay is feeling boring, there are a couple of things you can do right now—and neither one asks you to make things up or manufacture drama.
Fix #1: Get super specific
A boring essay is usually the result of an essay that feels like it could have been written by anyone. So read back through yours and ask:
Where are the sentences that the majority of people applying to this college could have written?
Then make them uniquely your own.
That means giving examples of things you’ve actually done and impacts you’ve actually had. It means snippets of dialogue. Language only you would use to describe something. Getting specific can take a flat essay and immediately make it more interesting.
Here’s the test: If a sentence would be just as true for the person applying right after you, it’s not doing its job yet.
(For more, check out this guide to how to show vs tell in college essays.)
Fix #2: Deepen your insights
The second move is about what happens after you make a point. Say a paragraph ends with you valuing honesty above keeping the peace. That’s already interesting. What’s more interesting is telling the reader why it’s true.
So dig in:
- What do you actually believe about the importance of honesty?
- What do you believe about the maybe-lesser importance of keeping the peace?
- Has your relationship with honesty changed over time?
- Can you give the reader a sense of growth — how you’ve learned to relate to it differently?
Instead of stopping at “I believe honesty is important,” go one layer deeper. Think about how you define honesty, not just that you value it. Helping the reader understand your unique flavor of honesty (or any value) can set you apart from the other applicants claiming the same values.
(And head here for more on weaving insight into an essay.)
Your next step
Take one paragraph of your draft and do two quick, specific revisions.
- First, look for any sentence that could’ve been written by another applicant and rewrite it with a specific phrase or example or detail only you would know or use.
- Second pass: Find a place where you state a belief and add the why underneath it.
With just those two revisions, you probably already have a meaningfully better paragraph.
Calvin, CEG’s Director of Coaching, is an ardent reader, writer, and all-around communicator with a deep love of stories. He has a dog, Seymour, whom he loves—in fact far more than Seymour loves him.
Top Values: Adaptability | Meaningful Work | Fun
